The area covered by this Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) comprises approximately 1,054 square kilometres of land in the vicinity of Eighty Mile Beach, the Great Northern Highway and the Sandfire Roadhouse in the state of Western Australia. The ILUA area is situated northeast of Port Hedland and southwest of Broome. It falls within both the Shire of Broome and the Shire of East Pilbara.

Legal Status:

Registered with the National Native Title Tribunal on the Register of Indigenous Land Use Agreements on 24 January 2011. This is a Body Corporate Agreement under the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth).

This Indigenous Land Use Agreement was agreed between Anna Plains Cattle Co Pty Ltd ('the Applicant') and the Nyangumarta Warrarn Aboriginal Corporation on 11 June 2009. The purpose of this ILUA is to provide consent for a range of future acts surrounding the grant of a pastoral lease to the Applicant by the Nyangumarta Warrarn Aboriginal Corporation.

Detailed Information:

This ILUA took effect as a contract on the date of its execution, being 11 June 2009. It took effect as an ILUA on 24 January 2011, which was the date of its registration with the National Native Title Tribunal.

This ILUA will come to an end either when the pastoral lease comes to an end, or by the mutual written agreement of all the parties - whichever occurs first.

Consent to agreed future acts

Pursuant to this ILUA, the Nyangumarta People and the Nyangumarta Warrarn Aboriginal Corporation give their consent to the doing of the following future acts:

- The converison of up to 6.25 square kilometres of the pastoral lease around each homestead into an estate in fee simple or a lease for any purpose and any terms;
- The grant of a license, permit or authorisation from time to time to enable the undertaking of agricultural activities (including diversification and intensification) in the ILUA area;
- The grant of leases, licenses and permits from time to time to conduct low impact tourism activities in the ILUA area; and
- The grant of pastoral leases from time to time in relation to all or part of the stock routes or reserves.

The following acts and land areas are the subject of specific provisions in the agreement:

Renewal of pastoral lease

The Nyangumarta Warrarn Aboriginal Corporation also gives its consent to the renewal, re-making or re-grant of the pastoral lease over the ILUA area from time to time for any term. This consent applies to a lease term that may be longer than the current pastoral lease term - as long as this term does not provide any greater rights other than an extension of the length of the term, and provided that it does not cover any greater area.

Stock routes and reserves

The Nyangumarta Warrarn Aboriginal Corporation gives its consent to the continued use of the stock routes and reserves by the Applicant for pastoral purposes. The Corporation also agrees to the grant of the pastoral lease or other non-extinguishing tenures from time to time in respect of the stock route and reserve areas.

Right to negotiate provisions

The parties also agree that the right to negotiate provisions in Subdivision P, Division 3, Part 2 of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) do not apply to any of the future acts to which consent has been given under this ILUA.

Background to native title in the ILUA area

The ILUA area falls within the determination area of native title made in the proceeding Hunter v State of Western Australia [2009] FCA 654 (Nyangumarta People (Part A)) by the Federal Court of Australia. This was a consent determination made on 11 June 2009 at Wallal Downs station, with Justice Tony North concluding that native title did exist in parts of the determination area. The determination actually related to two native title claims with respect to about 33,843 square kilometres of land in the Pilbara region, leaving one of them partially determined and the other fully determined.

This agreement is one of three ILUAs that were signed at the Nyangumarta People's native title determination, with the others covering the Mandora and Wallal Downs pastoral leases. These ILUAs were negotiated as part of the native title mediation process. As stated by the Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation in a media release dated 11 June 2009, they were signed in order to 'deal with the practical issue of co-existence between native title holders and pastoral stations' (2).